Choking on the Treacle

Female reporter to Barry Manilow: "They say music is the soundtrack of your life. What song.. do you look back at to remind you of tonight?"

Manilow: "Don't Give Up," by Peter Gabriel.

Earlier, a female reporter to Jeremy Irons: "What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?"

Irons: "Soldier on."

Irons looks at female reporter, who somehow looks even more vacant than usual.

Irons: "Do you understand what I mean?"

Reporter: "Not at all."

Tony Shalhoub bombed when asked, by a female reporter -- smell a trend here? -- what was the best advice you've ever given to another wannabe actor. He cited the advice Bette Davis allegedly gave to an aspiring starlet: "Take Fountain."

It's a hilarious line -- Fountain being a great street for getting across town in Los Angeles. It was lost on the room here in the parking lot of the Shrine Auditorium.